Egypt and Anwar Sadat

Egyptian president Nasser died in 1970, and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, another of the original Free Officers who had overthrown the monarch after WWII.

Sadat moved quickly and decisively to consolidate his power, imprisoning, exiling, or otherwise neutralizing possible rivals.

Sadat began a two-pronged offensive in order to achieve this goal. The first prong was a diplomatic one: In a major realignment of his nation's Cold War status, Sadat expelled the 20,000 members of the Soviet Union's military mission to Egypt. The second prong was also a diplomatic one, but also one with a military aspect: On October 3, 1973, Egypt attacked Israeli forces across the Suez Canal.

On November 20, 1977, Sadat went to Jerusalem and proclaimed in the parliament of Israel that Egypt desired peace with its Jewish neighbor. Less than a year later, Sadat met with the Israeli prime minister in a meeting chaired by President Jimmy Carter at Camp David.

The Camp David Accords were followed by a formal treaty between Egypt and Israel in March of 1979. The treaty shocked the Arab world, which began to treat Egypt as an outcast, and eventually resulted in Sadat's assassination in 1981.

Sadat was replaced by his vice president, Hosni Mubarak, who continued to rule Egypt well into the 21^st century.

Mubarak continues to move his nation in a direction of greater political reintegration with its fellow Arab states and peaceful cooperation with the United States.